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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”